Story ID: 988 Silvercrest.doc
GKN Chosen To Supply Silvercrest Low-pressure Turbine
By: Ian Goold
Caption: 
Word Count: 262
UK aerostructures and equipment group GKN Aerospace has been contracted by Snecma to provide low-pressure turbine (LPT) cases for the Silvercrest SC-2C engine for the Cessna Citation Longitude business jet. Under a long-term agreement valued at £10 million ($15.7 million), production of LPT cases by GKN Aerospace-Norway for delivery to Snecma’s Villaroche facility will accelerate as the engine is prepared for the Longitude’s scheduled entry into service in 2017.

GKN Aerospace-Norway was previously the Norwegian subsidiary of Sweden's Volvo Aero, which GKN (Chalet B73, Hall 2b F169) acquired less than 12 months ago to form GKN Aerospace Engine Systems. In its present and former guises, that business has shipped more than 10,000 commercial- and military-engine LPT cases.

The Norwegian division believes participation in the Silvercrest project has been helped by its 25-year risk-and-revenue- sharing partnership in the Snecma/GE CFM56 engine program, for which the company has been the sole supplier of LPT cases since 1986. “This has clearly supported a decision to involve us on this important new engine program,” said president Odd Tore Kurverud. “Although the Silvercrest engine is significantly smaller than the CFM56, we will employ many of the same skilled metal manufacturing techniques.” Skilled operators and automated tool handling and process control permit the machining of very-hard exotic metals for thin-walled turbine cases such as those to be used in the Silvercrest engine.

GKN Aerospace-Norway produces components for the world’s largest aircraft-engine manufacturers, including “advanced, mechanical production of shafts, vanes, housings, turbine cases and structures” at its Kongsberg facility in southern Norway.